Medical outcomes research is routinely performed and often mandated within the medical community. The goal of such research is to evaluate various factors which effect the health, well-being and medical treatment for people in society. Medical outcomes research can exist in many forms. By way of example, such research can include the evaluation of drugs, ailments, diseases, doctors, treatment techniques, and so forth in relation to various factors such as recovery rates, costs, incidences of sickness, side effects, patient mortality and/or other factors. Specific clinical or medical studies are often used to conduct medical outcomes research, as a way of gathering data related to the specific medical topic being researched.
Generally, to conduct a medical study on a specific medical topic, medical professionals such as doctors and other allied health professionals, and sometimes selected patients involved in the study, provide medical information related to the topic of the study which is being researched. The medical information gathered is often general in nature and may be obtained, for example, by reviewing patient records maintained in a hospital. Due to various reasons, information that can be obtained may be limited to only relevant factors within the patient files, and often excludes extraneous information that is not considered related to the medical study. Once the medical information from these various sources is gathered, the information is reviewed by a person in charge of conducting the study. The reviewer collates the information into various categories of data, which are collectively called medical outcomes for the study. Typically, the medical outcomes provide an indication, score or other criteria, based on the data collected in the study which may indicate, determine or evaluate the effectiveness or performance of a doctor, drug, or medical treatment as related to the treatment of a disease, sickness or other malady.
As an example, a drug manufacturer may sponsor a medical outcomes study to determine the effectiveness of a new drug recently released into use for the medical treatment of a specific ailment. The drug manufacturer may commission a medical research institute or other entity to research how many prescriptions of the drug have been filled, and of those filled prescriptions, how many of the patients who took the drug have successfully recovered from the disease. This information may be gathered over a long period of time across a wide range of the population. Once the information has been collected, the entity conducting the study can analyze the data that was collected to determine recovery rates for patients who took the drug. As a specific example, if ten thousand prescriptions of the drug were filled over a three year period, and seven thousand patients who took the drug experienced positive results from the drug treatment, the clinical outcome produced as a result of the research may indicate that the drug has a seventy percent effectiveness rating. The researching organization can then publish this clinical outcome in a report to inform the medical population and the public at large about the past performance of the drug in relation to its effectiveness in treating a disease.
More detailed information on prior art techniques for conducting medical outcome studies and research is available in the text entitled “Medical Outcomes & Guidelines Sourcebook”, published in 1998 in the United States by Faulkner & Gray's Healthcare Information Center, Eleven Penn Plaza, New York, N.Y., the contents of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.